Misunderestimation

I remember, about a week or so ago, chatting with a co-worker and fellow runner about the gym. I told her that I had gone a couple of times since January 1st and I was surprised at how not busy the gym had been; I had been expecting hordes of people trying to fulfill their New Year’s resolutions and shed the extra weight that seems to creep up over the holidays. It appears I spoke to soon and totally misunderestimated the situation. I hate George Bush. Where was I? Right, I went to the gym last night to find that there were NO treadmills available which angered me, so I signed up for one. I thought fine, I’ll work on the old guns while waiting for my machine and – lo and behold – the weight room was chock full of guys. Young, attractive, buff guys. Yay. When this type of proliferation of men occurs in bars, or coffee shops, or even in my dreams it is a happy time. This is not the case when it occurs at the gym. It’s a bit unnerving to walk into a room where you are a) at least two inches shorter and b) at least forty pounds lighter than everyone else and pick up a pair of twelve pound dumbbells while the guy next to you hefts the equivalent of half your body weight over his head while making strange wheezing sounds. I have been going to this gym for over five years so I’m pretty good at spotting the regulars (who, because they are smart, arrived about half an hour after me when the place was starting to clear out); the majority of the people in the weight room were not regulars. This was evidenced by the attitude of “you don’t belong here” that was subtly directed my way when these guys made a point of leaving their weights everywhere so that it was a veritable obstacle course to get from my little work out space to the weight rack, and by the way they kept encroaching on my space as if to squeeze me out entirely. No, I can’t bench press two hundred pounds and yes, my tricep kick backs are a little feeble, but I paid my drop in fee and I have just as much right to be there as the crazy guy that smells like garlic, peach ass and the blind guy. Jerks.
When it was finally time for me to hop on my treadmill I noticed two people loitering around it, just waiting for me not to show up. Are sign in sheets so totally difficult? It’s not a hard concept here, people. My machine: hands off.
Then another regular showed up: the hot guy that always dresses in black. I was like, “hey hot stuff”. Okay, in reality I didn’t so much as glance his way, but whatever. And it was at this point that my machine started to crap out. Yeah, I guess the connection with the emergency stop was loose and the vibration from my pounding feet kept engaging it because the stupid thing started to stop every minute. How lame! I’m flying along (okay, okay, flailing along) and then the machine comes to a complete stop and the readout says “Fix emergency stop connection” or something. And then it said “You’re slow, fat ass” and then “I’ve had sixty year olds than run faster than you”. So I started crying and went home.
Basically, now I am just waiting for everyone to give up on their resolutions, have another ding dong and decide that watching American Idol is a far more valuable way to spend an hour than slogging it out on the gym. Fingers crossed man, fingers crossed. I hope I have misunderestimated their tenacity.